Capturing caregiver data: An examination of kinship care custodial arrangements
Introduction
Kinship care is defined as the full time care, nurturing and protection of children by relatives or any adult who has a kinship bond with the children (CWLA, 2000). While this term is usually associated with grandparents raising grandchildren, it more broadly refers to a wide range of familial arrangements and circumstances. Kinship families include grandparents providing primary care for grandchildren whether the parents reside in the same home or not. Kinship families are dynamic, because they adapt their familial arrangements based upon the context to which care is needed. A biological parent can place a child with a relative because of a problematic situation, but 2 months later the parent may return to regain the role of primary caregiver to the child. Child welfare and legal systems of care may or may not be involved to demarcate roles and responsibilities with the family members.
Although kinship caregiving families can look different depending on individual situations and circumstances, since the 1980s kinship care has been conceptualized mostly as grandparents caring for children due to issues such as child abuse or neglect, substance abuse problems, incarceration, teenage pregnancy and other problems that would motivate relatives to take responsibility for the care of children. Some kinship caregiving families are involved with the child welfare system and some are not; the difference has often been described as informal versus formal care (Chipungu et al., 1998, Dubowitz et al., 1993, Gleeson et al., 1997, Harden et al., 1997a, Harden et al., 1997b, Hegar and Scannapieco, 1995, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1997). Informal kinship caregiving refers to an arrangement where children live with a grandparent or other relative and are not in state custody and are not under the auspices of the child welfare system. Often times these children do not come to the attention of any child protection services, but instead are cared for by relatives with an informal family understanding. Conversely, formal kinship care refers to children who have been reported to child protective services, are removed from the care of their legal parent or guardian, and have been placed in the care of a relative by a child welfare agency.
While the terms “formal” and “informal” kinship care have been used in practice, policy and research since the 1980s, some feel that these terms do not fully capture the experiences of families as they relate to their involvement in the child welfare system (Ehrle and Geen, 2002, Geen, 2003, Geen and Berrick, 2002). Sometimes “informal” kinship caregivers receive certain services from the child welfare system or have opted to care for the children through temporary guardianship. This means that their experiences with the child welfare system can be limited during less stressful times or more utilized during times of need. Likewise, “formal” kinship care placements can vary depending on how they are publicly supported and the way they are monitored. Although most researchers continue to use the terms “informal” and “formal”, others have adopted the terms “public” and “private” kinship foster care to differentiate between the experiences of families' involvement with the child welfare system. However, the terms “public” and “private” can be confounded based on the privatization of child welfare services. For example, when child welfare services in Florida and other states are provided by “private” community-based care agencies, these are often referred to as “private,” even though this type of involvement would be traditionally categorized as “formal”. Because the terms informal and formal appropriately describe the kinship care experience in Florida, these terms will be used in this paper.
Section snippets
Review of policy development
Social problems such as the unavailability of traditional foster homes and the effects of the crack cocaine epidemic generated a need for the child welfare system to consider alternatives for placing children in out-of-home care and develop policies to support kinship care placements. Policy first became involved in kinship care when concerns arose about the high number of Native American children being removed from their families and placed outside of Native American communities (Barth,
Review of research
Recent child welfare research (e.g. the Administration for Children and Families Children's Bureau State Demonstration Projects, Child Welfare League of America, Casey Family Programs, and others) has spearheaded a movement to examine secondary child welfare data about kinship care to systematically inform practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro practice levels. Child welfare studies have compared outcomes for children placed with relatives to outcomes for children placed with traditional
Instruments
Two instruments were administered to each participant in this study: the Florida Kinship Center Demographic Survey and the Florida Kinship Center Needs Checklist. Both of these instruments were pilot-tested and adapted to capture data on kinship caregivers based on the current knowledge base of kinship care. These instruments have only been utilized in one state, but they have been used for several years since the Florida Kinship Care Warmline is the longest running statewide support line for
Results
The results are presented in three sections: Basic demographics, Demographics by formal and informal kinship caregiving, and Needs by formal and informal kinship caregivers.
Age
Much of the child welfare research indicates that kinship caregivers are older than non-relative kinship caregivers (U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2000, U.S. General Accounting Office, 1999). In addition, policy tends to support this notion. The National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP), signed into the Older Americans Act before President Clinton left office, provides assistance to grandparents raising grandchildren who are ages 60 or over. Few of the current sample
Sample
Only those caregivers who contacted the Warmline were included in the data set. These are caregivers who acknowledged that they needed assistance and took the initiative to call the Warmline. Some of the caregivers not included in this sample are those living in isolation or those who do not know about the Warmline. Others who did not call the Warmline are individuals who do not want any assistance from outside of their own families and are afraid to get professionals involved in their family
Future implications
This study introduced the Kinship Care Warmline, a valuable service to relatives and a means for states to capture data on informal and formal kin families. During the time this article was written, several new statewide warmlines were introduced around the country. Recently initiated warmlines could adopt the Florida Needs Survey and/or Florida Kinship Demographic Survey to capture important data on the kinship families they serve. Not only could this data be used to improve telephone
References (63)
- et al.
Adoption of American Indian children: Implications for implementing the Indian child welfare and adoption and safe families acts
Children and Youth Services Review
(2002) - et al.
Factors affecting placement of children in kinship and non-kinship foster care
Children and Youth Services Review
(2000) - et al.
A comparison of kinship foster homes and foster family homes: implications for kinship foster care as family preservation
Children and Youth Services Review
(1994) - et al.
Characteristics and outcomes of drug-exposed and non-drug-exposed children in kinship and non-relative foster care
Children and Youth Services Review
(1998) Kinship family foster care: A methodological and substantive synthesis of research
Children and Youth Services Review
(2004)- et al.
Kin and non-kin foster care: findings from a national survey
Children and Youth Services Review
(2002) - et al.
Kinship care: An evolving service delivery option
Children and Youth Services Review
(2002) - et al.
Outcomes for young adults who experienced foster care
Children and Youth Services Review
(2002) - Anderson, S., Ramsburg, D., Scott, J. (2005). Illinois Study of License-Exempt Care: Final Report. Washington, D.C.:...
- et al.
Adult functioning of children who lived in kin vs. non-relative family foster homes
Child Welfare
(1996)
Caregiver substance abuse among maltreated children placed in out-of-home care
Child Welfare
The experience of being a grandmother who is the primary caregiver for her HIV-positive grandchild
Nursing Research
Going It Alone: A Closer Look at Grandparents Rearing Grandchildren
Kinship care in Walton County
Human Services in the Rural Environment
Children placed in foster care with relatives: A multi-state study
Exploring Child Welfare
Caregiver burden: Grandmothers raising their high risk grandchildren
Journal of Psychosocial Nursing
A profile of kinship care
Child Welfare
A profile of grandparents raising grandchildren in the United States
The Gerontologist
Kinship care and nonrelative family foster care: a comparison of caregiver attributes and attitudes
Child Welfare
Kinship Care: Paradigm shift or just another magic bullet
Kinship care: Health profile for grandparents raising their grandchildren
Journal of Family Social Work
Kinship Care: Improving Practice Through Research
Understanding the complexity of practice in kinship foster care
Child Welfare
Cited by (47)
“Now I am calm because they guide you:” A mixed-method exploratory study of the service needs and experiences of Latine kinship caregivers in Washington State
2024, Children and Youth Services ReviewInformal kinship caregivers’ parenting experience
2022, Children and Youth Services ReviewAssociations between family resilience and health outcomes among kinship caregivers and their children
2021, Children and Youth Services ReviewCitation Excerpt :I report an adjusted 95% odds ratio (OR) for each logistic model. Kinship caregiver demographic characteristics generally mirrored those of other kinship caregiver samples (Table 1; Berrick et al., 1994; Strozier & Krisman, 2007). Caregivers were mostly women (75.68%) and predominately grandparents of the target child (73.53%).
The children's home network kinship navigator program improves family protective factors
2021, Children and Youth Services ReviewThe relationship between well-being and meaning-making in kinship caregivers
2020, Children and Youth Services ReviewMeasuring the quality of care in kinship foster care placements
2020, Children and Youth Services Review